Is this unethical?

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

[ QUOTE ]
2.5 for 25 pitches.

that is so expensive.

just pay for 1/10 of your pitches. that is fair in my book.

[/ QUOTE ]

You clearly have never run a business.

If you think the guy is charging too much, don't use his batting cage. You don't get to decide that because Wal-Mart is charging too much, you'll steal every other pair of jeans you get there.

Pay to use the cage or go somewhere else. Some guy owns that place, and every token you use that you don't buy from him is $2.50 less profit at the end of the year. This is no different than taking $2.50 from his pocket directly.

[Sooga]

Well then perhaps my ethics are way out of wack, because if identical Mirage chips could be found on Ebay for pennies on the dollar, I'd be the first one there bidding on them, and I have a feeling that many others would be, too. There is a reason why the big casinos pay so much to make sure their chips cannot be counterfeited easily.

[touchfaith]

If you answer that this is stealing, don't forget to delete any mp3's you have downloaded over the years tonight before you go to bed.

[Sooga]

Also, keep in mind that I'm not saying that what I did was right. I realize that it's theft.

But if any of you that said it was theft, also download mp3s and burn CDs from them, then you're a hypocrite. At its essence, these tokens and downloading/burning mp3s are one in the same. Just as by using counterfeit tokens I am taking money out of someone's pocket, by using counterfeit sound files to make a counterfeit cd, you are also taking money out of someone's pocket.

[Sooga]

hahahah i wrote my last post literally the same time you posted yours (concerning mp3s).

[spamuell]

[ QUOTE ]
If you answer that this is stealing, don't forget to delete any mp3's you have downloaded over the years tonight before you go to bed.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not the same because if you're playing in a batting cage, that means that someone else can't, so you're not just not paying, you're actively preventing someone else from paying.

If you download mp3s that you would not otherwise have bought, you're just not paying but you're not preventing money from being paid because you wouldn't have paid for them if you didn't have the option to download them.

Having said that, they're both theft. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do the former but I do the latter, which is why I said previously that I "might" do the former, as I'm not saying I never steal.

[Sooga]

That's assuming someone is waiting in line. If you go during off hours when no one else is there, then they are pretty much the same thing.

[The Goober]

Stealing is stealing, and there's no way around it. Keep in mind that part of the reason that things cost so much in the first place is that the business has to asorb the costs from people like you. Suppose the guy who runs the batting cage figures out what's happening (which shouldn't be hard). Now he's gotta switch to a new type of token, replace all machines, etc... That's a huge cost that gets passed down to all the customers. So now he starts charging $3.00 for tokens and some little kid can't go to the batting cage as often.

Not to be too heavy-handed, but you get the idea.

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

[ QUOTE ]
Well then perhaps my ethics are way out of wack, because if identical Mirage chips could be found on Ebay for pennies on the dollar, I'd be the first one there bidding on them, and I have a feeling that many others would be, too. There is a reason why the big casinos pay so much to make sure their chips cannot be counterfeited easily.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your ethics are out of whack.

[LotsOfOuts69]

What if I decided that I would never pay $2.50 for a token, but if I had free token's I would go, and might bring some of my friends, then they get hooked and go back without me and buy tokens on their own.

Is it stealing if I would never buy a token from the place? It doesn't cost anything for the machines to pitch. What about all the extra customers I just got for the cage?

Just a thought...